Sherwood Forest

As a royal forest, many kings have hunted in Sherwood; King Richard I, King (the monarch formerly known as Prince) John, Kings Edward I, II and III.

King John was on his way to his favourite hunting grounds, Clipstone in Sherwood, when he died at Newark Castle in 1216. (You can still visit the ruins of this lodge at Clipstone.)

Sherwood literally meant 'Shire Wood', and in the Middle Ages, Sherwood did cover much of Nottinghamshire, extending beyond into Yorkshire and Derbyshire.

Visitors today may be disappointed to find that Sherwood is not the dense kind of forest depicted in many a Robin Hood movie. The truth is that is never has been densely tree'd as the Bunter Sandstone which underlies the area makes the soil dry and of poor quality.

This open nature of the forest meant that the trees - mainly birch and oak - tended to grow in girth rather than height - a circumstance which led to the massively trunked examples described below.

By a survey made in 1609, there were found to be over 49,000 oaks in the main part of the forest, the majority, even at that time, being past maturity.

In the 104 years between 1686 to 1790 it was reported that no fewer than 27,199 of the forest trees had been cut down.